I had on Kitty Sheehan because of how she told her story: a first-person essay which used an omniscient POV. I had never read anything like it. Talking with Kitty Monday made me appreciate the bravery she needed to try something this novel, and then, when that unusual approach was rejected by readers and editors, the self-confidence required to persevere.

 

There have been other divergent approaches to memoir writing, and I talk about David Carr's The Night of the Gun, a book where Carr interviewed the people who knew him when he was an addict, asking questions about actions that he couldn't recall. 

 

I also talk about the fallout from James Frey's and Augusten Burroughs' memoirs. In Burroughs' case, he had to perform feats of memory as a way to prove he was telling the truth in his books.

 

I trust Kitty's story completely, mostly because her experiences were the rest of her family's too. They lived the fallout from that day for the rest of their lives. In other words, they relived that day over and over.